Wait Until Then…

A couple weeks back, I received a couple of Randy Alcorn books to read and review. Having three kids, it was pretty exciting to me to be receiving these books… they’re directed toward kids. I’d like to say that Jeffrey, Jenna, and Allison were a great help in reviewing these, but unfortunately, they’re all a bit too young to really have a firm grasp on the topics Randy writes about. Perhaps my review of the first of these, “Wait Until Then”, suffers a bit from not really having a good kids’ perspective.

Anyway, “Wait Until Then” is the story of a boy and his grandfather, and their shared love of baseball. The boy suffers from spina bifida, and he longs to walk and run and play baseball, as other kids do. The grandfather, a former major league ballplayer, is dying of cancer. Through their common love of baseball, the boy learns from his grandfather about the future joys of heaven… of freedom from pain and suffering… of having redeemed bodies we may be able to use to play baseball… of seeing loved ones who have already passed on to be with Jesus… and of knowing that all of this is available through a faith relationship with Jesus.

All of the above is great… there’s a lot of weighty topics included, which should make for some good teaching opportunities for parents (ties in nicely with the companion book, “Heaven for Kids”, don’t you think?). And the illustrations? ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL work from Doron Ben-Ami.

However, I hate to say it, but the book just doesn’t fare as well as I would have hoped. To me, it felt much less like a story and more like a theology lesson for kids. Not that theology is a bad thing, of course, but it would seem to me that Randy could have done a better job leading us to points rather than simply having the characters state the facts. And the ending? Well… to avoid spoiling it, let’s just say I really didn’t care for it.

All said, I have to just give the book a so-so rating. I’d definitely recommend that you look over it in your favorite Christian bookstore before buying.